Late Night Movies, Careless Drinking (To Cover These Scars)
by perspectivesinpaper
Summary: "Because we didn't get to where we are overnight." A collection of one-shots and drabbles of Felicity and Tommy's friendship as it developed in no particular order [Those Five Months Verse]
1. Computer Error

**Computer Error**

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Thomas 'Tommy' Merlyn had a reputation. He had a seemingly bottomless trust fund that was used for wining, dining, and flying girls. Add to that the fact that he had the looks and the grace of a greek god and enough natural charm, enhanced by etiquette lessons, to be able to make the steadiest wall crumble. He abused these things as a means to an end and it didn't matter to him, because the people seemed ready and more than willing to partake in his escapades. He was a heartbreaker.

Not only him, but also Oliver. Oliver who had a little sister who Tommy practically adopted as his as well. Oliver who had a long term off again/on again girlfriend that may or may not be the love of Tommy's life. Oliver who may have abused the aforementioned trait more than Tommy had. But maybe it just seemed that way to him because Oliver kept going on with those activities even though he was in a relationship with Laurel. Sure he had some indiscretions of his own but none as bad as Oliver's. He would never go behind the person he truly cared about in that way. Or at least he'd like to think so but he wouldn't really know because the only person he'd cared about that much was Laurel.

It always tore at Tommy to see Laurel cry. But he always stood by her, picking up the pieces that his best friend had so carelessly scattered on the floor and it for that brief moment it was him that was her savior. The one that put her back together. Made her happy again. Then she'd just go back to Ollie and the cycle repeats. But that just circles back to the point of all of this.

Which is that it wasn't that much of a stretch to say that Thomas 'Tommy' Merlyn has been around a lot of crying girls. Enough to know at least a _few_ ways to get them to stop or at least a way for him to safely extract himself from the situation.

And yet all of that previous knowledge seems to amount to nothing as he stood in front of a bawling Felicity Smoak who was looking at him as if he had just run over her first born child with a lawn mower.

Because he may or may not have (He did.) borrowed her tablet.

And he may or may have left it on the couch and sat on it (It was an accident!) and cracked the screen so deep half the screen was a nonsensical pixilated blur.

He had apologized profusely at her but that just seemed to make things worse.

He's offered her new shoes or clothes, a sure thing for Thea.

He's even tried a hug and some chick flicks because they work wonders for Laurel.

He tried walking away but that just led to her screaming at him that he didn't get to run away because it was his fault and apparently that means that he has to stand there and suffer with her.

Really he was starting to run out of ideas and the guilt was starting to get stained by annoyance at her refusal of all of his offers.

"Don't you think you're over reacting a little bit?" Shit. Backtrack. Backtrack. Backtrack.

Felicity's eyes snapped up to meet his, a dangerous glint shining in her eyes, all the sadness suddenly thrown back by the anger that began rolling off of her in waves. "Overreacting? I'm overreacting?! You murdered her Tommy!" Her?

"This isn't like with desktops where I can just go buy a new monitor, plug it in, and it's good to go. Or a laptop where I just have to take off the shell and then plug in a new monitor. Noooooo." She was gesticulating so wildly that she actually hit the wall hard enough to displace the few frames on it. Not that it deterred her speech in the slightest.

"She is a _tablet_. I have to go buy a whole new outer shell for the screen and have to take apart the motherboard and frankly at that point it would just be easier for me to buy a new tablet and transfer all of the files from this one to that. But that's not the point!" She took a deep breath to continue on with her tirade and quite frankly Tommy was too scared to take a breath of his own.

"The point is that she has been in my life far longer than you have and you just...you just _sat_ on her. You broke her! You…you…ugh!"

"I'm sorry!" He pleaded another time. "I can buy you a new one! Hell we can go fly to their company building right now I'm sure they have some new product or something that I can talk them into giving you!"

On that note she just gave him an exasperated huff and turned around and stomped up the stairs, and by the general location of the slamming door, sought refuge in her room.

Granted she has been having a pretty rough couple of days with her guilt at not being able to stop his father and her friend being hospitalized and Oliver being a general dickhead who hasn't responded to any of her calls apart from one text (Shove your "I'm fine"s up your ass Ollie.). It doesn't help that they seem to still be unearthing bodies from the wreckage only adding up to the tally and their guilt.

Okay so maybe he is a thoughtless asshole.

While they have spent nearly every passing hour over the last week and a half together in a boundaryless makeshift friendship, it has only been a relatively short time and they were still trying to find ways to go around landmines that they seem to keep setting off in each other. Apparently they have all these intimate knowledge of these situations that concern them both but not yet a lot of each other. Well that's a lie. One could say that they already knew more about the other than polite friends do. But still, some things, like how to handle situations, only come with time and experience.

And that they have not had much of.

They tried to have sex again. That was just a mess. Sure they found each other attractive and damn she was a great kisser. She's got a very talented mouth that stirs very basic feelings within him. But then when they try to take things further he suddenly remembers that this was Felicity and for some reason moving forward just felt awkward.

And he knew that it wasn't just him because when Felicity's hand started to make it's way down his chest towards his pants she started laughing. Hard. Saying that she could just picture him in the story that he had told her after one particularly rough nightmare about when he was a teenager and their cook had walked in on him trying to lick a drop of ice cream that had fallen on his lap and assumed the worst.

His ego took a pretty big hit that night. But then again it had lightened their mood incredibly and they spent the rest of the night swapping scarring childhood memories. But yeah.

So sex is off the table.

The whole story swapping could work again. He's sure that there's still some stories that she hasn't unearthed. But that required her to actually bridge a communication with him or else it will just fall flat and a perfectly good story gets ruined. So that's out.

He ran his fingers through his hair trying to come up with the next best thing to do. He could just leave her alone to calm down but what happened was really his fault that was blown out of proportion, yes, but still his fault. So that's off the table as well.

He was a little slow on the uptake but he does feel like he managed to get it right as he makes his way up the stairs half an hour later. He takes a deep breath to center himself and opens the door slightly to see Felicity curled up in her bed still clutching the broken tablet. He rolls his eyes slightly at the display, he still felt guilty as shit of course, but she just looked like a little kid all curled up with messy hair smothering the tablet to her like one does with their stuffed animal. He knew that it wasn't about the shattered device, but more about the wall that she has been carefully building to protect herself from the fallout of the Undertaking, although it's "death" apparently tipped the scales enough to send the whole structure tumbling down.

He curled up around her in the bed and shoved the pint of ice cream in between her and the tablet. "I was an ass."

She simply scooted over to the edge of the bed to give him more room and distance, not bothering to look at him. "Mint chocolate chip?"

Scoffing, he propped himself up on his arm so he could have a better view of her."No. I seriously don't know how you can eat that. The color is not natural." A brief image of the bright green color of the ice cream flashes past his eyes, making him cringe.

"You can't apologize to someone and insult their very being at the same time. That's just a shitty way to apologize. And you started off so well." If he were a betting man, and he was, he would say that she was rolling her eyes.

"Just look at the damn tub smartass." He groaned as he used his knee to nudge her.

Felicity shifted slightly in front of him. "Thin mints in ice cream form?" She turned around to face him then, the pint in her hands, a teary, but genuine, smile coming on her face. "Thank you."

He doubted he was fully off the hook yet, but she was smiling amidst tear stained cheeks and swollen eyes and talking to him. So that's progress. "You should just get these instead of the colored crap that you usually get." But then again it was always in his nature to test boundaries.

She flicked his nose at that. Damn her hands were freezing. "Watch your mouth, I haven't forgiven you yet. Also that 'crap' that you're calling is delicious minty, creamy goodness, with a good amount of crunch depending on the brand. Plus this little tiny pint costs nearly the same as two tubs of mint chocolate chip. And there's also the assurance that there's always going to be one at the store while you have to time it right when trying to get the right flavor of Ben and Jerry's." He couldn't argue with that. It took him having to practically dive into the depths of the damn store's refrigerator just to get what appeared to be the last pint of that flavor.

She just held the small container in her hands as they lay there but her eyes were still shimmering with somber scrutiny. "I know I overreacted earlier. I'm sorry." Her voice was barely a whisper as her breath ghosted over his cheeks.

"We haven't really talked about that night." His tone matching hers, knowing that he was running the risk of her getting mad at him again for bringing up.

She simply turned away from him although her whole body tensed as his words triggered her fight or flight instinct. Anything to protect herself. "I know."

"Just whenever you're ready, okay? You know where to find me." He uttered, poking her cheek until she turned to face him again so she could see the sincerity that he was hoping that he was projecting. She just nodded at him, letting him know that she understood.

Knowing better than to push her to talking he just nudged her until she was half off the bed. "Come on Smoak. Let's go get some spoons into that thing before it melts."

"You talk as if I was going to give you some." She flushed deep at that. "Ice cream. Some ice cream. Not some like…" she made some odd squeaking noise while she attempted pantomiming what he assumed was sex.

He just huffed in reply. "Now that was just crass and uncalled for."

He did end up having to buy tickets to fly her to some computer company in the west coast one random day. They made a day trip out of it to his expense, both financially and egotistically as Felicity seemed to repeat his unfortunate accident to every computer tech that she got acquainted with. But he didn't mind, because days like these, where they can leave behind the grim cloud hanging over their heads whenever they're at Starling, where they can forget their responsibilities and goof off like the 'adults' that they were, were worth a few jibes at his thoughtlessness.

And apparently his buns of steel.

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	2. Wasted

**Wasted**

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It took Tommy Merlyn two days to make himself at home at Felicity's house and the first thing that he brought with him was a bottle of scotch. Or four.

"He wasn't always like that you know. The cold, distant, murdering bastard." Felicity tucked her feet beneath her to get herself into a more comfortable position by his side, not knowing what else to say or to do. She had just gotten home from visiting Diggle at the hospital to find the house dark with a very distinct smell hovering on the air and Tommy draped over half of her couch.

"He may not have always been around but he did make a point to make it to the important parts of my life. Small awards, my pre-school graduation, my pee-wee games. He woke me up when I had nightmares and he made me smile." There was a bright yearning in his eyes that was shadowed by confused guilt, wondering what he could have done to lose the man that he knew that broke Felicity's heart.

She reached out and held his free hand, needing to comfort him any way she could. "He sounds like a great father."

He let out a dark chuckle. "He was my dad. He was like superman in my eyes." She felt him loosen her grip on his hand and push his fingers through hers. He turned away from her and took another large gulp of his scotch, a far away look on his eyes.

"There was this one time. I don't think there was any actual special occasion. I think I was around seven or eight? It was just this random day to me. Then my dad just randomly walks into the room and announces that we were going to take a family trip. No warning.

"I remember my mom got mad at him because he didn't give us any preparation. Just told us to up and go. She was so scared at first but he just wouldn't stop smiling. He said it was an adventure."

She smiled at the image in her head, of a younger looking Tommy Merlyn who was all smiles and excitement about to go off to an unknown adventure. A far cry from the broken man that sat next to her now.

"We ended up taking one of the convertibles but we didn't put the top down until we were in the interstate. I remember my mom complaining about her hair but it wasn't really in a mad way you know? My parents used to be so fucking happy. I swear you'd wanna throw up just watching them for a few minutes. It's like they were still teenagers on their first day out without any parents.

"We ended up at some park with this big ass waterfall in the middle of nowhere. I don't even remember where. I just remember that it took us hours to get there. It was so beautiful Felicity. I remember that it only had this little balcony overlooking the whole thing."

Felicity felt her heart swell at the amazement in his voice that was now devoid of any drunken slurs. She could feel the subtle happiness radiating from him at the memory.

"Turns out it was an anniversary of some sort for them. My dad said it was a decade to that day that he knew without a doubt that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with my mom, that's why my mom had no idea in the first place. He said it was on some trip that they took to the Niagara falls. Well he said that it was seeing her on the passenger seat as they drove toward it.

"My dad was a sap. But yeah. And he said that this waterfall was the closest he could replicate the day, drive and all, in the west coast without actually flying us to the east and possibly giving away his plan."

His features grew somber again as he refilled his cup, all traces of happiness slowly fading away. "I think we ended up staying the weekend there. I don't really remember a lot of what else happened. Hell I don't even know how accurate my story was and how much of it was my romanticizing what happened again and again after my mom was gone...just trying to get a semblance of that happiness from that day."

They sat in silence after that. Just letting the heavy mood pass, because really what can a person say to that? What can a person say to alleviate the pain of a lost childhood?

Nothing appropriate really. So what the hell. She grabbed the cup from his hand, ignoring the pissed look on his face, and downed the remaining drink in one gulp. "Wanna go hack the news station and mess with the ticker tape?"

"Seriously?"

Felicity just placed the cup on the coffee table and stretched out her feet to his lap. "No. Maybe." She paused a second weighing how much damage they could cause by doing so. "I mean I could. If you really wanted to. We would have to go by the station to plug in though just to make things easier…so maybe not?"

Tommy just raised an eyebrow incredulously at her making her face heat up.

"I was just trying to help." She inwardly her cursed her rapidly heating cheeks and the way that her voice rose in pitch due to embarrassment. "Screw this I'm getting another glass and I'm going to educate you in Dr. Who."

"The original or the new one?" Felicity could only look at him in shock.

"What? It's not like I have a job." He continued on defensively. "Although there's this one guy in the new one that looks alarmingly like my father. It's actually kind of creepy."

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

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